The battle's done, and we kind of won, so we sound our victory cheer: where do we go from here?
... a blog by Marc Lynch

June 08, 2006

Zarqawi's death: likely implications

So it looks like the US finally got Zarqawi. You never know for sure with these things, but given how shattering it would be for US credibility if he turns up smiling in another video next week I'd assume that the news is true (and al-Qaeda in Iraq has confirmed it, according to al-Jazeera). I couldn't be happier to see this guy dead. Calling him a brutal thug does a disservice to brutal thugs. The beheadings, the rabid anti-Shi'ism, the takfiri jihadism - across the board he was the worst of the worst. Death by what his followers will call martyrdom is far too good for him, but seems a reasonable compromise. What will his death likely mean for the insurgency and for the wider political scene?

His death will not likely end or even diminish the Iraqi insurgency, but it may change its character. Zarqawi has been a real organizational and mobilizational force in the Iraqi jihad, but does not seem to have been the central mastermind that his and American propaganda alike made him out to be. The Iraqi insurgency has always been far more complicated than either "regime dead-enders" or Zarqawi's jihad (for detailed analysis of how the insurgency has involved, you couldn't do better than Ahmed Hashim's masterful Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq, or this recent International Crisis Group analysis). Zarqawi had enemies and rivals within the insurgency, and those groups will likely soon take advantage of his absence to stake their own claims to leadership. As long as the political conditions driving the insurgency remain, it will continue - and others will take advantage of those conditions and try to stake their competing claims to leadership, just as did Zarqawi. (Chris Allbritton thinks that Zarqawi's location might have been tipped by Sunnis who have decided to cooperate with Maliki's new government - if he's right, that could be much more significant than Zarqawi's death per se, and get at those political conditions; my first guess had been that the video Zarqawi released contained clues that got him nailed, which is also what many of the commentors on the jihadi boards are saying - "the video was Zarqawi's greatest mistake").

Al-Qaeda in Iraq will also likely regroup - I'm less confident than Allbritton that his removal will cripple the jihadi networks. Other figures from within his own movement will also likely appear to take his place. The new figures will be lionized in AQI's sophisticated internet propaganda campaign, just as Zarqawi will become the great shahid in their propaganda. As long as the killing fields of Iraq are a target of opportunity for jihadis to attack Americans, and to produce the steady stream of imagery so central to jihadist propaganda, the jihadi component of the insurgency will continue as well.

The one place where Zarqawi's death might make a real difference is in the Sunni-Shia dynamic. Zarqawi's rabid anti-Shi'ism went beyond tactical or strategic considerations, of trying to push civil war ot make the American project untenable. Even by radical Islamist standards, his anti-Shi'a focus was extreme (though not by any means unique). If Zarqawi's group drops off in prominence for a while as it reorganizes, you might see less of an anti-Shi'a focus in the attacks. Not necessarily - it's very possible that the civil war dynamics have already escalated too far that removing one of its drivers won't make a difference any more. But that's one area where the removal of Zarqawi from the field could conceivable change the tenor of the insurgency.

In the bigger picture beyond Iraq, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden are likely relieved. Zarqawi's rabid anti-Shi'ism and brutal methods, and his willingness to murder innocent Muslims, had become a real liability for al-Qaeda Central's strategy of winning over mainstream Muslim and Arab publics. The Amman hotel bombings last November epitomized the ways in which Zarqawi's narrow-minded campaign could turn at least some potential supporters of al-Qaeda's anti-American political vision against the means of violent jihad. Zarqawi's death won't prevent others of the ever-metastasizing jihadist splinter groups from carrying out similar splinter attacks, but it does remove one particularly potent advocate of such attacks. Jordanians at least can be relieved, since other jihadis might not share Zarqawi's particular hostility towards the Hashemite Kingdom (Jordanian officials are claiming a role for Jordanian intelligence in the operation, which wouldn't surprise me - al-Jazeera's Amman correspondent was evidently arrested along with one of Zarqawi's relatives in mid-interview).

As for the competition many observers saw between Zawahiri and Zarqawi to succeed bin Laden when he dies, the latter's death obviously removes that particular challenge. It doesn't remove the underlying political dynamic, though. Beyond the individual personalities, Zawahiri represented a vision of a centralized al-Qaeda setting the broad contours of the strategy of the jihad, while Zarqawi represented the most potent example of the more general trend towards decentralization and localization of the jihad. Zarqawi himself may be out of the play, but the tension between al-Qaeda Central and a decentralized jihad will only grow. (I heard Abd al-Bari Atwan say that Zarqawi had already been losing ground in this internal struggle, and that he had been somewhat isolated by Zawahiri's manuevering. Who can really say what's true there?)

I've seen some early suggestions that with Zarqawi dead the US can declare victory and go home. Sadly, no. Way back in the mists of time, Howard Dean was pilloried for stating that the capture of Saddam Hussein hadn't made the US safer. He was widely ridiculed at the time, but he was right. It didn't mean that capturing Saddam and putting him on trial for his crimes wasn't a good thing, or that it didn't help at the margins. But it didn't end the insurgency or resolve the structural problems facing the US in Iraq. The same thing likely applies to Zarqawi's death. There may or may not be good arguments for the US pulling out of Iraq, but killing Zarqawi won't resolve those arguments one way or the other.

More later when I have the chance to look through the Arab media and jihadi boards to collect their reactions. .... and now it's later. Happened too late for any of the dailies to write about it, so that will have to wait. Al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya are both covering it heavily, in a pretty straightforward way. The boards I've looked at so far seem fairly consistent: accepting the fact of his death remarkably quickly (less questioning than I would have expected) and describing it as martyrdom in the path of god (exactly as I would have expected) and saying that hundreds of Zarqawis will rise to take his place. Some dark murmurings about how he was betrayed from within his ranks, and plenty of nasty words for the Shia who are seen as behind it all and whose media are celebrating his death.

UPDATE: well, here I thought this might be a controversial position to take. But when Bill Roggio, Juan Cole, and Zal Khalilzad all roughly agree with my take, then I guess I'm just right in the middle of a big old consensus. Which of course means that I'm probably wrong.

There wasn't much in the way of an insurgency in Iraq until some 6 months after Saddam was captured. I suspect he may not have been captured at all, if there had been an insurgecy for him to hide behind.

There wasn't much in the way of an insurgency in Iraq until some 6 months after Saddam was captured. I suspect he may not have been captured at all, if there had been an insurgecy for him to hide behind.

Well, I have to disagree there wasn't much of an insurgency before Saddam's capture. What about the bombing of the UN Building (August 2003), the assasination of Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim in Najaf (August 2003), The "Ramadan Offensive" (November 2003) et al?

However, I would go further than Marc and say that the capture of Saddam not only failed to hurt the insurgency but actually served to strengthen it. Let me quote from the report by the International Crisis Group:

First, Saddam’s capture in December 2003 helped rid the insurgency of the image of a rear-guard struggle waged on behalf of a despised regime. Paradoxically, his incarceration
gave the insurgency renewed momentum, dissociating it from the Baathist regime and shoring up its patriotic, nationalist and religious/jihadist credentials. By the same token, it facilitated a rapprochement between the insurgency and transnational jihadi networks, which had been hostile to a partnership with remnants of a secular, heretical regime and whose resources (monetary and human) could now be fully marshalled.

Well, I have to disagree there wasn't much of an insurgency before Saddam's capture.

Fine. History tells a different tale, though. Things didn't really start getting bad in Iraq until the contractors were killed in falluja, and Al Sadr started up in the south. Both of which were spring of 2004.

What about the bombing of the UN Building (August 2003), the assasination of Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim in Najaf (August 2003)

Two terror attacks does not make an insurgency.

The "Ramadan Offensive" (November 2003) et al?

What about it?

This week, U.S. armed forces in Iraq passed an unfortunate milestone. With the deaths of two soldiers in a guerrilla attack north of Baghdad on Wednesday, 117 U.S. troops have now been killed in hostile action since President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat on 1 May.

May have seemed like a big deal in 2003, but it was nothing compared to how bad things got in 2004.

And then after challenging me, you agree with me, and disguise it as agreeing with Marc? :D

Can we both agree that you will cast the events of the last 3 years in iraq in whatever light is least favorable to the Bush Administration? I mean, they can't win with you, and neither can I. Right? It's a complete disaster to you, start to finish. That's fine, but lets not pretend we are discussing facts.

Is this how we are to win "hearts and minds," Abu Aardvark? With revisionist history?

There wasn't much in the way of an insurgency in Iraq until some 6 months after Saddam was captured.

False. The insurgency started around about mid -2003. The US goverment seemed to recognize it around that point. IN Novemember 2003, the US army actually started a major offensive.

There were many bombings before then as well, with the attacks on the UN, the Red Cross, Al Hakim, the Turkish Embassy etc.

Yes, 2004 was worse, but its certainly not true that the insurgency didnt start till 6 months after Saddam's capture. Heck, back in July 2003 when his sons were killed, there was speculation that that could tamp down the insurgency.

With or without Zarqawi, the "ethnic cleansing" aiming at creating neighborhoods, towns or even entire cities that are ethnically or confessionally homogeneous is underway. In Baghdad alone, 100,000 people have fled their homes and are now “displaced persons”. And thousands of Basrah residents have sought refuge in neighboring countries.

As to foreign forces, they are primarily threatened by the nationalists and the ex-Ba'athists. The death of al-Zarqawi will have no direct impact on the war against the multinational forces.

Although George W. Bush and Tony Blair have declared Zarqawi's death a "great victory", it should be remembered that al-Zarqawi is a byproduct of the invasion. No one, not even the US President, has ventured to predict a decline in the violence.

"There wasn't much in the way of an insurgency in Iraq until some 6 months after Saddam was captured."

And that is also false. The US launched a major offensive in November 2003 (they called it reopening the war). There were also around 80 plus US soldier deaths in Nov 2003, which were the most till the Fallujah offensives in 2004 (and still remains fairly high for the war). Maybe the US army did feel that "not much in the way of an insurgency" was indeed worth a major, serious offensive over, but I tend to think not.

Fine. History tells a different tale, though. Things didn't really start getting bad in Iraq until the contractors were killed in falluja, and Al Sadr started up in the south. Both of which were spring of 2004.

I agree that the insurgency reached its peak in the spring of 2004. That's when you had the radical Shiite groups fighting the Americans as well as the Sunni insurgents, and opinion polls showing Sadr to be the most popular figure in Iraq. However, I just disagee that there "wasn't much of an insurgency" before then. If I had to pick the time when the insurgency became a significant phenemona, I'd choose the summer of 2003, when the insurgency morphed from a Baathist/Feyadeen rearguard into a nationalist Sunni resistance. It's also when the insurgents began employing suicide bombings.

Two terror attacks does not make an insurgency.

I listed two of the most spectacular attacks, attacks that are especially notable because they mark the beginning of suicide terrorism in Iraq. Do you really want me to give a chronology of all violent incidents from May to December 2003?

Can we both agree that you will cast the events of the last 3 years in iraq in whatever light is least favorable to the Bush Administration? I mean, they can't win with you, and neither can I. Right? It's a complete disaster to you, start to finish. That's fine, but lets not pretend we are discussing facts.

Umm...what negative comments did I make about the Bush Administration?

.And then after challenging me, you agree with me, and disguise it as agreeing with Marc? :D

Actually, I was trying to express my disagreement with your comment in a civil manner. I'm sorry if you interpreted it as a personal attack....Anyway, there's no contradiction in my statements
(1) That a signifigant insurgency existed before Saddam's capture
(2) That the insurgency was actually strengthened by Saddam's capture.

Milt, I'm gonna respond to Peter, since he seems more willing to talk about reality than you are. No offense intended, but since you guys are both making the same general points, it's my call, right? :)

Peter,

If I had to pick the time when the insurgency became a significant phenemona, I'd choose the summer of 2003, when the insurgency morphed from a Baathist/Feyadeen rearguard into a nationalist Sunni resistance.

I wouldn't call a Sunni resistance, nationalist. For one thing, Sunnis are a minority in Iraq... and for another, it was only a minority of that minority that began starting trouble at that point in time. Arab Sunnis. Not Kurdish Sunnis.

That was sectarian resisatnce. Not nationalist resistance.

It's also when the insurgents began employing suicide bombings.

That would be terrorism. not insurgency.

I agree that the insurgency reached its peak in the spring of 2004. That's when you had the radical Shiite groups fighting the Americans

I don't actually believe it peaked in 2004. I think the serious insurgency didn't even begin til then. I do not think it has yet peaked. The shia have just enterred the game recently, other than Al Sadr brief foray against US forces in 2004. The Shia are going to win, but it's not going to be fast, and it's not going to be clean. But it will be mostly Iraqi on Iraqi violence. But then, what we've been calling "insurgency" has always been primarily Iraqi on Iraqi violence, so I'm not sure I want to make a distinction.

Do you really want me to give a chronology of all violent incidents from May to December 2003?

No. I want you to use your memory. Do you remember the way things were in Iraq in 2003? Do you remember how things were in iraq in 2004, even? Even at the end of 2004, there were a large number of Iraqi bloggers who were optimistic about the future. That's all gone now.

Umm...what negative comments did I make about the Bush Administration?

No negative comment, per se. You characterized the last 3 years in Iraq in an exagerratedly negative manner. I assume you have some reason for doing so.

(1) That a signifigant insurgency existed before Saddam's capture

If there had been a significant sunni insurgency in Al Anbar prior to Saddam's capture, Saddam would not have been captured. That's my original assertion, and that's where I'm still at. He was alone. In a hole in the ground. The President of Iraq.

There wasn't much in the way of an insurgency in Iraq until some 6 months after Saddam was captured.

This is a semantic debate. There wasn't nearly as much violence in iraq then compared to later. It's kept growing, and possibly before we pull out there might be people who wouldn't consider the present level to be much of an insurgency, compared to what we'll face then.

So sure, it was considerably less then. Should we call it "not much of an insurgency" or not? It depends only on where you want to draw the line between "not much" and "some".